Observances of Chinese New Year, such as families gathering for reunion dinner and replacing the old spring couplets with the new ones, traditionally take place from the evening preceding the first day of the year to the Lantern Festival, which is held on the 15th day of the year. Photo: FILE

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The lunar New Year’s Eve is probably the most important night of the year for Chinese people. It marks the beginning of the Chinese lunar New Year. Eleven o’clock serves as the boundary between the years of different Chinese zodiac signs (ancient Chinese hours are interpreted in terms of twelve sectors namely with the sector zi shi from 23:00 to 01:00, which indicates the start of a new day). For instance, if the animal sign of the people born before 23:00 on the lunar New Year’s Eve is monkey, the one born after 23:00 will fall under the sign of rooster. A tradition of staying up late on New Year’s Eve, known as shousui, is still practiced as it is thought to add  to one’s parents’ longevity.

The lunar New Year’s Eve is also a joyous and noisy night. In old Beijng, there were particular sounds that emanated from each house that wove into the melody of this significant time.

 

Melody of  New Year’s Eve
When night fell, children and young men began to play with various firecrackers around their houses. Only the brave kids could set off the powerful firecrackers. They would put the firecracker on a stair and stand as far as they could away from it, with one hand covering their ears with other hands carrying incense sticks to light the firecracker. All the other kids covered their ears and waited at a distance, eagerly and tensely. The sounds of firecrackers would grow louder and denser at midnight, filling the entire city with cracking, popping sounds, and the sky would turn red. It was the time to honor ancestors and welcome the gods from Heaven.

When children were setting off firecrackers in the courtyard, housewives were in their own battlefield—the kitchen. All the dishes for New Year’s Eve, which contributed to the annual reunion dinner, had been prepared before that night except one dish—jiaozi, which was called zhu bobo in old Beijing. It was customary to make jiaozi after dinner to eat around midnight. Therefore, almost every housewife was busy finely chopping vegetables and meat to make filling for jiaozi. The sounds of cleavers hitting the cutting board came from every kitchen and merged together, conveying a festive mood.

There is a sad story about the lunar New Year’s Eve. For the lower-class people in ancient China who lived in absolute poverty, sometimes Spring Festival was not a joyous day. It is said that a woman waited for her husband to bring some money back home on New Year’s Eve. The poor family had been deprived of the basics—warm winter clothing and fresh food. After getting her children to sleep, the woman noticed the chopping noises of other women preparing jiaozi from the neighboring houses. Struggling in the state of overwhelming misery and fear that her husband might come back with nothing, she began to sob and cut against the empty board with the cleaver to make the neighbors believe that she still had something to cook, thereby maintaining her family’s dignity.

The other sound that featured in the Spring Festival of old Beijing came from the clicking beads of suan pan, an abacus used in ancient China for counting. In the old days, the lunar New Year’s Eve was the deadline for merchants to finish their annual accounts, thus becoming the busiest night for all the stores. The streets continued to echo with the sounds of the clicking beads of suan pan and merchants’ voices checking accounts till the time of wu geng (geng refers to a traditional Chinese time system and the time between each geng is 1/10 of a day) or 4:48 in the morning of New Year’s Day, when people started to hold ceremonies to welcome the Kitchen God back from Heaven.

 

Auspicious words
In old Beijing, people regarded their right practice during the Spring Festival as an omen of luck for the coming year. Not only observing the festival by adhering to ancient rules, they also tried to avoid violating various taboos.

During the Spring Festival, some words are often used in good wishes and several foods are consumed to usher in wealth, happiness and good fortune, because their names are homophones for words that also mean good things. Apple is an essential ingredient of the New Year’s offerings, as the word for apple (ping) is a homonym of the word for peace and safety. Fish, usually a carp, is eaten or merely displayed on the eve of the lunar New Year as the Chinese phrase “may there be surpluses every year” sounds the same as “may there be fish every year.” The pronunciation of fish (yu) makes it a homophone for “surpluses.” Another important offering was the genian fan, indicating there would be endless food every year. The genian fan was often a mixture of rice and millet, which colored the dish yellow and white, symbolizing gold and silver. The mixture was piled like a dome in a bowl, with toppings like peanuts, longans, red dates and chestnuts, symbolizing prosperity, fertility and having many children.

During the days of imperial China, beggars and other jobless people circulated from family to family, carrying a picture of the God of Wealth and shouting that the God of Wealth was coming. On hearing this, householders would respond with “Please come in!” and rewarded the messengers with money. It was a trick played by beggars, but people were willing to cooperate as they considered it a good sign.

There were also some New Year taboos that people tried to avoid violating. If someone broke a bowl, it was wrong to say directly “break,” as this character (sui or za) refers to screwing things up. What is acceptable is to say “Sui sui ping an,” which means being safe and sound every year. If a child stumbled and fell, people would say “Die die zhuang zhuang, mei bing mei zai,” which means that stumbling around keeps illness and misfortune away. According to the Dijing Suishi Jisheng, a text about the traditions and customs in Beijing during the Qing Dynasty, people ate rice cakes or porridge instead of steamed rice on New Year’s Eve, which would bring about a peaceful life without quarrels. It was a custom during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor (1711–1799).

Yuanri shuhong (writing on red paper on the first day of the new year) was a symbolic ritual for literati in imperial China to celebrate the Spring Festival. On the first day of the lunar New Year, they wrote verses on red paper as a form of blessing and prayed for literary talent or success in the governmental examination. These verses were usually written with regular script in two pairs of rhyming couplets, with each line consisting of four syllables. The finished red couplet was then pasted to the writer’s desk.

 

The fifth day
In old Beijing, observances traditionally took place from the first day to the fifth day of the year, marking the transition from the last year to the lunar New Year. The fifth day of the New Year is called po wu (a breakthrough on the fifth day, literally). Business didn’t return to normal until the fifth day and some businesses reopened on the next day (the sixth day). As is recorded in the Yanjing Suishi Ji, or the Annual Customs and Festivals in Peking, from the first day to the fifth day of Chinese New Year, rice could not be eaten raw and women were not allowed to go out. These taboos could not be broken until the sixth day, when court ladies and wives of officials in formal dresses visited each other and extended New Year greetings. Newly married daughters also went back to their paternal homes for a visit. Ladies’ delicate carriages decorated with embroidered curtains crammed the streets and alleys.

However, not all the people were happy during Spring Festival. Since the fiscal year was aligned with the lunar calendar year in imperial China, the fifth or sixth day of the New Year marked the end of some businesses. If a shop didn’t reopen on these two days, it signified that it was bankrupt and shut down. For the employees of the survivors, there was another challenge. It was customary for the employers to hold a party preceding the day to reopen. During the party, if the employer put a baozi (a steamed stuffed bun) in an employee’s bowl, it meant that this employee was fired, and a baozi used in this way was called a “gun dan baozi” (gun dan refers to being kicked out).

 

The article is edited and translated from the Local Customs in Yanjing by Deng Yunxiang (1924–1999), a renowned literary historian and folklorist in China.

(edited by REN GUANHONG)